Biography

Formation

EDward Gaming first entered professional League of Legends in September 2013. EDG secured a spot in the 2014 LPL Spring split by acquiring the slot of LMQ, who had left to compete in the 2014 NA Challenger Series. EDG's acquisitions were U, former Positive Energy AD Carry NaMei, World Elite players ClearLove and fzzf, and Koro1 as their top laner.

2014 Season

EDG had a strong debut in 2014 LPL Spring, winning games against every team in the regular season except Oh My God. They beat OMG at the International Esports Tournament 2014 and then emerged as the champions in the LPL Playoffs. They continued this performance in the Summer Split, earning first place in both the regular season and playoffs. In addition to their LPL success, EDG also found success in other events, finishing top 2 at every major tournament they competed in. They also won the Chinese Regional Finals, securing the #1 seed in China for the 2014 Season World Championship. However, EDG's performance at the World Championships was less than stellar. The team tied for 2nd in their group with ahq e-Sports Club, and ended up losing to fellow Chinese team Star Horn Royal Club 3-2 in the first round of playoffs. After the disappointing showing, jungler Clearlove would declare that "The end is also the beginning."

2015 Pre-Season

On November 10th, 2014, Korean AD Carry Deft, who had most recently played for Samsung Blue, announced on Twitter that he would be joining EDward Gaming. Deft's signing sparked speculation on the fate of NaMei, as both players were seen as world-class at their position. Eventually, NaMei would leave the team to join Star Horn Royal Club. Less than a month later, EDG announced that they had signed Korean mid laner PawN, World Championship mid laner from Samsung White.

2015 Season

On January 15th, the day before the beginning of the 2015 LPL Spring split, Fzzf announced his retirement. He was replaced temporarily by Mouse, who played with the team at the G-League 2014 Finals, and in the first two weeks of the LPL Spring Split. Beginning with week 3 of the split, Meiko became the team's support. The team went through the regular season, only dropping 6 games in 44. They finished first in the Spring Playoffs after a five game series with LGD Gaming, winning the Chinese spot at the Mid-Season Invitational. At the MSI, they went 4-1 in the group stage, dropping a game only to SK Telecom T1. After a 3-0 defeat of ahq in the semifinals, they faced off against SKT in the finals, this time beating them 3-2 and winning the tournament. In addition to the prize pool won from the tournament, the organization doubled the payout to players.

In the Summer Season, EDG continued their domestic success with a dominating 14-2-6 match record. At the end of the regular season they only dropped 10 games out of 44, securing the 1st seed in the regular season and advancing to the Summer Playoffs. Even though the team had high expectations to win the tournament, they lost 3 - 0 to LGD Gaming in the semifinals and dropped to the 3rd place match against Invictus Gaming that they also lost 3-1. After the disappointing playoff run, EDG played in the Regional Finals for a last chance to secure a spot for Worlds 2015. They faced Snake Esports in the first round and beat them 2- 0. EDG advanced to round 2, where they played Invictus Gaming in a rematch of the 3rd place match from the playoffs. EDG won 3-1 and advanced to Worlds as second seed from China. EDG were placed in a group with SK Telecom, H2k Gaming, and the Bangkok Titans. They came out of the group in second place and were drawn to play Fnatic in the quarterfinals but lost to them 3-0.

2016 Season

EDG's 2016 preseason saw AmazingJ and BaeMe leave the team, while Mouse, rq, and Athena - the former mid laner of Korea's new rising star team Ever - joined. They were drawn into Group B for the 2016 LPL Spring Season.

The spring season started off fairly rocky for EDG. They dropped series in an attempt to integrate their substitute jungler, Mitty, to the team. Along with PawN being subbed out due to his back injury, the team suffered early in the split; however, they soon recovered form. PawN returned, and played until finals, and the team began to play their old macro-style. They almost tied with Royal Never Give Up for first in their group, only being down one series.

In the Spring Playoffs, the Qiao Gu Reapers, now known as Newbee, were unable to field a midlaner, thus forfeiting their semifinal match to EDG. The LPL Spring finale resulted in a 1-3 loss for EDG to Royal Never Give Up. Despite being expected to be a close series, the Chinese players of RNG performed better and took strong control of the series.

Before the summer season started, it was announced that PawN was stepping down to recover from him back injury. Scout was announced to take his place. Once the season started, mouse took the place of the longstanding toplaner Koro1. What followed was the most dominating domestic performance in the history of the LPL, with EDG emerging undefeated in the 16 best-of-3 of the Summer Split, only dropping 5 maps out of a total of 37 (86% win rate on single maps). The team qualified for the Playoffs Semifinals, where they defeated Team WE 3-2 and advanced to the Finals against the reigning champions, RNG; this time it was EDG's time to shine, as they closed their perfect season with a clear-cut 3-0 victory and thus secured a spot in the 2016 Season World Championship as the first seed for China.

EDG was drafted into Group C, alongside the second seeds from Taiwan and Europe, Ahq e-Sports Club and H2k-Gaming, and the International Wild Card representative INTZ e-Sports. After a huge upset loss in their first game against the Brazilian team, the team managed to secure second place after losing the tiebreaker for first place against a surging H2k. Three days before their Quarterfinals series against ROX Tigers top laner mouse returned to China due to an unfortunate issue of his family, with Koro1 rejoining the team for the Bracket Stage matches. The inability to step up their play in a clutch series, a poor performance from Clearlove and an excessive reliance on bot lane success ultimately led to a 0-3 defeat at the hands of the Korean team.